Richard Belzer, Detective John Munch in TV hits, dies aged 78
Richard Belzer, a stand-up comedian who became one of TV’s most indelible detectives as John Munch in Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: SVU, has died. He was 78.
Belzer died on Sunday at his home in Bozouls in southern France, his longtime friend Bill Scheft told the Hollywood Reporter.
The comedian Laraine Newman first announced Belzer’s death on Twitter. The actor Henry Winkler, Belzer’s cousin, wrote: “Rest in peace Richard.”
Belzer played the wise-cracking homicide detective prone to conspiracy theories over more than two decades and across 10 series, including appearances on the hit comedies 30 Rock and Arrested Development.
Belzer first played Munch on a 1993 episode of Homicide and last played him in 2016 on Law & Order: SVU.
Belzer never auditioned for the role. After hearing him on The Howard Stern Show, the producer Barry Levinson brought Belzer in to read for the part.
“I would never be a detective,” Belzer once said. “But if I were, that’s how I’d be.
“They write to all my paranoia and anti-establishment dissidence and conspiracy theories. So it’s been a lot of fun for me. A dream, really.”
Munch would become one of the longest-running characters on US TV, a sunglasses-wearing presence on the small screen for more than 20 years.
In 2008, with Michael Ian Black, Belzer published the novel I Am Not a Cop! He also helped write several books on conspiracy theories, about things like the assassination of John F Kennedy and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
“He made me laugh a billion times,” his longtime friend and fellow stand-up Richard Lewis said on Twitter.
Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Belzer was drawn to comedy during a childhood in which his mother would beat him and his older brother, Len.
“My kitchen was the toughest room I ever worked,” Belzer told People magazine in 1993.
Expelled from Dean Junior College in Massachusetts, Belzer embarked on a life of stand-up in New York in 1972. He made his big-screen debut in Ken Shapiro’s 1974 film The Groove Tube, a satire co-starring Chevy Chase that grew out of the comedy group Channel One.
Before Saturday Night Live changed the comedy scene in New York, Belzer performed with John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray and others on the National Lampoon Radio Hour.
In 1975, he became the warm-up comic for the newly launched SNL. While many cast members became famous, Belzer’s roles were mostly smaller cameos. He later said the SNL creator, Lorne Michaels, reneged on a promise to work him into the show.
